


To Love a Lion

by aurumdalseni (kyo_chan)



Series: Voltron Five Times Kissed [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 21:25:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11998263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyo_chan/pseuds/aurumdalseni
Summary: Just as important as the bond among paladins is the bond the paladins have with their Lions. In this, a kiss for each of the Lions who have accepted them for who they are.





	To Love a Lion

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my follower giveaway - 5 times kissed. The request was for five Lions with five paladins. I hope you enjoy!

I.

It had taken him a long time to get used to this. The way it felt to fight, both on the ground and in a ship. Hunk still wasn’t sure. There are some days when he doesn’t think he’s cut out to be a Voltron paladin. Too soft, too weak. But in the times when he has his doubts, that’s when he can feel Yellow’s presence the strongest. It’s like having his being built up on a foundation of the strongest stone, warm and alive, reminding him without words that he can do this. It happens most often in the height of battle, when Hunk’s instincts war with his compassion. Yellow reminds him that there is something to fight for – always something to fight for. Sometimes he wonders if Yellow cares just as much about making sure he can go home as Hunk does. Home and heart are important to Yellow, and Hunk can feel it.

This battle has been hard, the team still unable to form Voltron in Shiro’s absence. The paladins fight harder than they ever have before, and Hunk comes away from it tired from the inside out. He stumbles from Yellow’s cockpit, exhausted and rocking on his feet. But as he stares at the walls of the hangar around him and hears the excited chatter from his teammates from the helmet tucked under his arm, he can’t help but smile weakly. They’d done it, he’s survived this again when he thought he might not. He turns to find Yellow’s head bowed inquisitively toward him.

“Thanks, buddy,” he murmurs, leaning in to press his cheek to cool, magic-charged metal. “Tomorrow’s another day, right?” He turns his head to bump his nose against Yellow’s and follow it up with a kiss. The rumble of approval at the depths of his being is answer enough.

_Tomorrow is another day, my paladin._

II.

She had fallen asleep again. In the vast depths of the castle where Green’s hangar is, Pidge has set up her entire lab. She spends more time there than she does in her actual quarters in the castle proper. She’s more comfortable there, and the lion’s presence reassures her. Makes it so that she doesn’t feel so alone on those sleepless nights. She works herself into exhaustion more times than not, and Green is curious at her ability to sleep in such uncomfortable positions, only to wake up the next day ready to take on the next battle. Whether that is the Blue Paladin’s noisy mouth or the next Galra fleet, it doesn’t matter.

This quintent, she has been working on cracking some of Slav’s code. She is still trying to find Shiro, and she suspects he might be in some other part of the universe, perhaps some fold of space or time. She had talked out loud about it to Green, even if Green could not answer in words she understood. Green tried her very best to help Pidge see that there is another layer to their connection without taking her into it. Knowing her inquisitive paladin, it’s likely that she would find the astral plane too fascinating to leave and lose sight of her objective. That would certainly scare her fellow paladins. But as the hours grow later, Pidge’s eyelids become heavier, and she dozes off before finishing her current testing string.

Green catches her paladin sleeping while sitting straight up, and if she could have sighed, she would have. Instead, she lowers her great head and gives the barest bump to her paladin’s body. Pidge topples into a heap that starts snoring almost immediately. Green delicately picks up a pile of fabric that Pidge has been curling up under when she’s cold and drops it on her. With one last bump of her great nose that doesn’t even stir Pidge from slumber, Green also sleeps and waits for her paladin to recharge.

III.

“Thank you,” Shiro murmurs.

He stands on a field of stars, this place having no sense of structure or reality. But it’s real to him, as real as the lion he’s flown, the air he’s breathed, the life he’s lived. Black crouches before him, studying him as he stands proudly in this home she’s created for him. He’s come so far in so little time.

It had been a close call. The final fight with her former black paladin had been brutal, his madness beyond anything she had ever known. And Shiro, with his scarred body and broken mind, had dared to try and fill that gaping emptiness in her. She had obeyed him out of curiosity and now saved his life because of devotion. He is a good paladin. He spoke of important things like trust and how a paladin should not try to control a lion. After all, she is too proud to bend to the will of any who had a whim to pilot her. Once, her former paladin had been worthy, and it saddens her to this day that he is forever lost to her. In his madness, he almost takes her second paladin, an act she cannot condone. So if it is a choice between letting the weight of the final battle kill him, or taking him away from his paladins  until he could heal, the choice is so very obvious.

_You understand?_  she asks him, her otherworldly gaze intent.

He steps forward, leans up on the tips of his toes to kiss her nose, nothing but trust in his tired eyes. “I understand.”

IV.

Maybe it’s crazy, but Blue is one of Lance’s best friends. She trusts him, she believes in him, and she is ever at his side. She even understands his flights of fancy, is willing to dance on the stars or under the waves at his whim. Her bond with him makes Lance smile, keeps his heart light and full of hope in this war. It certainly is something to imagine, that a paladin of his power could ever feel so lost, far away from home, and as if the world did not believe in him. But she does. From the moment he stepped into her cave, touched the waters surrounding her, she had known. Lance is hers. He pilots her with love and devotion, he adores flying with her, and it shows in all he does.

“Beautiful,” he calls her, and it’s as if she knows what love is just by the sound of his voice. He lays himself on one of her great paws and kisses a claw as if he is courting her like a lady.

Blue is content.

V.

The black paladin is home.

Red has never known such joy in her own paladin before. Rather, she has grown used to the pull of his pain, ever on alert to protect him from it. She does not know affection, not like the creatures that pilot her brethren now. Rather, she knows a fiery force that compels her to keep Keith safe. She has been trying to learn. Black tells her she is too much force, too much anger, so she pays special attention to the things Keith holds dear. Those things are every bit as important as saving him from the things that do him harm. And on this day, his spirits are so high, she feels as though she might burst from the weight of these unfamiliar sensations.

The black paladin is home. Keith is happy. He disengages from her cockpit with a triumphant yell and and excited rush for her exit doors. When he tumbles out of her and into the hangar, she roars loud enough to shake the castle. He turns, and she’s been told that jubilant split of his face is a smile, it means good things. But the noise she makes darkens that expression some; it is not her intention.

“What is it, Red?” he asks, still anxious to get to the door, but so full of concern for her. If she had a heart, it would perhaps be racing with how much he cares for both her and his black paladin.

She doesn’t answer him in words, she cannot yet. But she leans down–

–and bumps him with her snout so hard he falls over. That is the best she can do. Keith laughs as  he staggers to his feet.

“Me too, Red,” he tells her, his warmth flooding through their bond. “Me too.”


End file.
